This year, one of my resolutions is to tweet one Hyderabad related thought a day. It will be a personal memory mixed with some historical fact... although I can't vouch for its accuracy. I am a Hyderabadi. We are straight-up people, but we only do #KhaapitFactaan.

1. If you saw Marredpally today, you wouldn't know it was once a hilly forest. Some will tell you that the 300-year-old Mahakali temple Neem or the 400-year-old Baobab are proof of that forest. Lies! 'They were planted re!' Baobab was planted by our Hyderabadis of African origin.

2. Grandma's garden (and locality) with old native trees has become a haven for bats. Hyderabad's tree coverage has halved just in my lifetime. Native trees like Jamun have been replaced by alien trees like Gulmohar, displacing 60% of bats and leaving them (and us) vulnerable.

3. As a Hyderabadi, I should've learnt Kuchipudi, not Bharatanatyam. Sultan Abul Hasan Qutb Shah saved Kuchipudi from the brink of extinction after watching Bhamakalapam by Siddhendra Yogi's troupe. (Udupi Math let Brahmin men () perform it since it was too lewd for devadasis!)

4. Hyderabad taught me that belonging isn't earned, it's a right. Our diversity in terms of origin (national & foreign), religion & language is unmatched in India (for various reasons). Where else do Telanganites & Yemeni Arabs, French-Christians & Buddhists share Khada Chammach?

5. Hyderabadis find cousins everywhere. In DC, I see our house sparrows, rock pigeons, barn swallows, black-crowned night herons. Our Indian Robin has an American Robin cousin; Laughing dove has Mourning Dove, Indian Golden Oriole - Baltimore Oriole, House Crow - American Crow

6. My uncle would say that our last Begum Sultana's ghost visits Famous Ice cream in Moazzam Jahi Market every year; Brother says she visits Hyderabad Public School on Sports Day! The entrance & exit routes in Golconda fort were changed by our many rulers for the fear of ghosts

7. Khaja Bangles in Laad Bazaar is making lacquer bangles with Indian & American flags in honor of VP-elect Kamala Harris. What makes our bangles unmatched is that they are customized to match the intricate design on our trouseaus, right to the stone & bead. Seriously intricate!

8. I caught myself saying Hyderabadi Hindi. Our favorite word "cHINDIyaan" has hindi in it, but Hyderabadi is Urdu.. with loan words from Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Arabic, Turkish & Persian. Our predecessor Dakhni is also Hindi's predecessor. That's right, North India!

9. Secunderabad had the largest British (now Indian! ) cantonment. So the city's official language was English. It's also home to many Anglo-Indians & Parsis. Therefore, unsurprisingly, many of us speak English at home.
BTW, Hyderabad's official languages were Persian & Urdu.

10. At 3, I dressed as a lambadi. At 15, aunt gave me a lambadi blouse. (I'll address appropriation soon). Lambadi (Long Body) & Banjara (Vanchar) are both foreign words as far as they're concerned. But no one admired their culture like the Qutb Shahis #BanjaraDarwaza #Bhagmati

11. Secunderabad's Plaza Cinema was the only place in India to serve alcohol inside the theater. The city once had the most English & foreign film avenues. I loved watching foreign films in Sarathi Studios, foreign institutions, libraries, clubs. Drive-ins are big thing now.

12. Indian film history omits Hyderabad because it was not a British city. The erasure is so complete that film critics often start with when Tollywood switched to Hyderabad from Madras in the 1970s. That's 60 years of erasure –– of Raghupathi Venkaiah, Lotus Film Company etc.

13. Couldn't we have left our megalithic hillocks untouched? Couldn't we have just been happy to climb them? The white hillocks razed to build the Birla Mandir, the monadnock reduced to build the Maula Ali Dargah, the boulders of impossible beauty destroyed to build HITEC City.

14. In the past, kite penches (fights) would take place only on terraces. Flyers would start flying kites in December. By Sankranti, the sky would turn into a Pollock painting of Namandars & Dappan Langots. Now we have an International Kite Fest. Penches have moved to the ground.

15. My arts teacher exposed me to many Deccani painting styles at a young age. She fostered in me an appreciation for detail, and an understanding that we manipulate dimensions to express the collision of nature, arts, thought & spirit. I'll share my favorites in each style soon.

16. After centuries of spoliation, when the Egyptian Mummy (whose facts we got SO wrong) was preserved, some were sad that they couldn’t see through the embalming into the skeleton anymore. Hyderabadis at least preserve her now. The 5 Mummies in other cities continue to spoil.

17. Allow me one more tweet on our language diversity (See 4, 8 & 9). Narendra Luther (our real Khaapit), says 40% of Deccani words are from Punjabi, including some words that Punjabi has lost today. That's from our Persians making a 175-year pitstop in Punjab before invading us.

18. 'How many lakes are too many lakes?', asked no Hyderabadi. Or 'Is this real or manmade?'. For centuries, we've been conditioned that to build a 'replica of heaven' (goals!), we need ~150 lakes & ~5000 other waterbodies. Even now I live a walk from 4 lakes & other waterbodies.

19. "Won't you talk about Biryani?" Yes, and one tweet won't do. Even with food, ours is a culture of reinvention (not authenticity). Asaf Jah's chefs served 50 varieties of Biryani using everything from veggies to fish, deer, buffalo, hare, and spices from all over the world.

20. Recently, @KTRTRS, our IT minister, tweeted about doubledecker buses. I've used them for years so I share his nostalgia. In 1946 when the Nizams brought 30 Albion CX 19 buses to India from England, operational & environmental costs were not a consideration. It was muft karch!

21. Locating Home: India's Hyderabadis Abroad says Pakistanis bag on Hyderabadis for exaggerating. 3 pages down, it says Hyderabad had the first cement roads & doubledeckers. Hut! First cement roads were in Madras in 1914 & doubledeckers were in Bombay in 1937 #MoversAndPhekers

22. It's wedding season. Qawwali and classical music are popular in our weddings, but Marfa is huge as well. Nothing's more Hyderabadi than Marfa, our own Hadhramawt music performed by our Chaush (Hadhrami) & Siddi people. This time of year, you hear Teen Maar everywhere.

23. It's a sad coincidence that the year I chose to share my Hyderabad stories is the year that Narendra Luther passed away. So much of what I love about my city, I learnt from him. If Hyderabad has been your home for an extended period of time, you'll enjoy reading his books.

24. Our Chaush people give us more than music. Haleem, a dish that no Hyderabadi celebration is complete without, is a Chaush dish. It's our modified Harees/Jareesh. The main difference is that Harees is sweeter than Haleem. You'll find great Arab food on Mandi Road, Barkas.

25. We're enjoying looking up places on a lamp we bought with a Hyderabad map etched on it. The Musi River in it is wider than our big localities, and calls to mind its old life as Nerva, when it caused devastating floods. That temperamental river is now as thin as a hair strand.

26. Today is a reminder not to abuse our Constitution as we've become habituated to doing. It's the work of hundreds of self-sacrificing heroes. It's a special day for Hyderabadis. We didn't gain freedom in 1947. We lost ours in 1948, and were embraced by a large family in 1950.

27. Chinese-Hyderabadis (Hubeis) have been our traditional dental hygienists. They also taught other communities. So you'll see a diverse group offering services on dental street – on the pavement, in clinics (equipment made in-house). Some shops have been there since late 1800s.

28. A friend asked me if Hyderabad is becoming less diverse. No. Because monoculture is not in our blood. If it never was, it can never be! No one gets immigrants, refugees and people driven by hope like us. Eg: More than 80% of Somalis who now call India home, live in Hyderabad!

29. Embarrassing fact, but you need to know this about us. Imagine seeing snow everyday, like 24/7/365 for 17 years, including when it's 44°C (111°F). Our hot semi-arid climate hasn't stopped us from building the world's biggest snow park. I'm talking 2-acres! We let it snow!

30. As a kid, my most favorite way to learn about my city was through locality names. Some are named after nobility, some after their staff (servants), and Jagirs. Most suffixes describe geographical features, because we take pride in our topography! I'll share examples soon.